What Does It Take To Turn The PC Into A Hi-Fi Audio Platform?

[Someone Somewhere]

Anyone that thinks there "isn't much difference in sound quality" between these devices obviously hasn't heard these devices in person.

I'm sure that 'didn't read the article' is a valid reason for deleting a post...

 

[panzerknacker]

Everybody here needs to stop generalizing and read my comments.Toms' clearly proved that cheap onboard audio CAN actually sound very good, they did not proof that this is ALWAYS the case. If you read my comments you will find a example where it clearly is not the case. I think it will be different on a per motherboard basis and should be determined by the user wether to use the onboard or to invest in a decent sound card. Btw I can absolutely recommend the Creative X-FI card with the Wolfson DAC, its cheap and simply delivers very good sound.

 

[Alsone]

There's an alleged known issue with the Asus STX and that is with a headset with a microphone it can allegedly suffer buzzing - lots of reports on the internet of this alleged problem eg: http://www.head-fi.org/t/628954/known-issue-asus-xonar-stx-mic-humming-buzzing-when-playing-gamesand even in Tom's Own Forums:http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1996055/constant-static-asus-xonar-essence-stx.htmlThe reviewers should really have checked this out and tested with Mics as well as just pure headphones.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Everybody here needs to stop generalizing and read my comments.Toms' clearly proved that cheap onboard audio CAN actually sound very good, they did not proof that this is ALWAYS the case. If you read my comments you will find a example where it clearly is not the case. I think it will be different on a per motherboard basis and should be determined by the user wether to use the onboard and invest in a decent sound card. Btw I can absolutely recommend the Creative X-FI card with the Wolfson DAC, its cheap and simply delivers very good sound.

I don't usually take the word of a random person on a forum as a scientific test. I'm not going to buy something just because you recommend it; back it up with decent info from a reputable source.

Have you heard of the placebo effect? It's remarkably powerful. Unless you didn't know which source was playing at the time, it's very easy to 'hear' a difference when there is none.

 

[Memnarchon]

By the way, I couldn't agree more with the most people here. This is one of the best PC sound articles I ever read .

 

[panzerknacker]

*facepalm*Inexcusably, this has to be one of the poorest (if not THE poorest) article I have ever read on Tom's Hardware. I applaud Filippo (the author)'s effort in putting the tests together, and I appreciate his open admission that he is not an audio enthusiast in any way. But to dismiss the medium and high end audio gear as little better than the $2 onboard stuff is just absurd. In some ways, it is akin to having grandma saying how her base model Corolla is no different than Porsche 911 since she drives them to the supermarket just the same.As a head-fi enthusiast myself, I can 100% assure you that are magnitudes of difference between your onboard sound card and what $2000 can buy. As a matter of fact, even at the $2, $200, $500, $800 price points, the difference in audio quality is *HUGE*.For anyone who is seriously interested in quality head-fi audio, instead of wasting your time reading through this particular article (and worse, be swayed by its conclusion in any form or way), please do yourself a favour and head over to http://www.head-fi.org/. The community there is friendly and helpful, and will offer you real, useful, and quality insights to help you get the most out of your audio $$$.Head-Fi doesn't have to be expensive to sound good -- you just have to know how to spend your dollars.

Traum thank you for your kind words. I think what we're saying here is that despite us looking at a particular Porsche and imagining it lapping Nurburgring faster than a particular Corolla, we actually took them both for a drive and the results were that the lap time was the same. That obviously isn't a fair comparison though as, in practice, the Porsche DOES lap the track faster.

Not in our tests though. And we welcome additional tests similarly rigorous to make a different point than we are, if that turns out to be the case.

If the Corolla was a AE86 model with some mods then I wouldnt be surprised tbh.

 

[mnl2g]

I noticed a big difference moving from a Realtek chip to an external DAC/amplifier, mainly because it was just much less noisy. After reading this article I'm inclined to think this is more likely due to jitter in my power-supply than the Realtek chip itself - the noise would change frequency if I alt-tabbed between my desktop and a game for example.I also would like to point out that the comment about cable transparency is a little misleading too. I have a 20ft el-cheapo cable which is anything but transparent! It sounded so horrible I nearly threw it away. I still have it, if you like I can record an A/B of it for you (through my 24/96 interface, where it actually matters). That's not saying I'm vouching for those ridiculous boutique cables, but really crap cables can make a noticeable difference.Also when it comes to unbalanced signals (e.g. electric guitar), cables will make a marked difference (diminishing returns still kicks in pretty early though).

 

[mnl2g]

Oh an great article, the links were very useful and informative too. Thanks!

 

[panzerknacker]

Everybody here needs to stop generalizing and read my comments.Toms' clearly proved that cheap onboard audio CAN actually sound very good, they did not proof that this is ALWAYS the case. If you read my comments you will find a example where it clearly is not the case. I think it will be different on a per motherboard basis and should be determined by the user wether to use the onboard and invest in a decent sound card. Btw I can absolutely recommend the Creative X-FI card with the Wolfson DAC, its cheap and simply delivers very good sound.

I don't usually take the word of a random person on a forum as a scientific test. I'm not going to buy something just because you recommend it; back it up with decent info from a reputable source.

Have you heard of the placebo effect? It's remarkably powerful. Unless you didn't know which source was playing at the time, it's very easy to 'hear' a difference when there is none.

It's entirely up to you wether you believe me or not.

About the Placebo effect I suspect that you are refering to my testing done of the onboard audio vs Oppo F5 and then Oppo F5 vs Audigy X-FI. First, I asked my friend what mobo it was: Asus P8Z77-V PRO with Realtek® ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC. Second, yes we did do blind testing but it wouldnt have made a difference if we had not because the variation in sound quality between these devices is so clear that you immediatly hear the difference wether you're playing a video game or listening to music. We didnt even use expensive speakers for testing or anything but the onboard sound was simply a disaster. The reason we started comparing in the first place was because he was playing CoD Ghosts on the thing and I noticed how mediocre it sounded, we connected the Xbox 360 and playing the same game we were shocked by the difference. We tried analog and digital outputs for the onboard, did not make a difference at all. Drivers were installed as normally, etc. I am even thinking that maybe something is broken about his motherboard because I have also used many Realtek chips in the past and never heard much difference tbh.

What I'm trying to say, don't take for granted that your onboard sounds good because the one that Tom's is using does. The board we tested is a pretty expensive modern one but the sound quality is absolutely unacceptible and the difference is so big that it WILL be heard by absolutely everyone.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Hmm. That does sound like something's wrong.

Atrociously bad PSUs can cause major problems due to high ripple, so that's probably a first route to look at. Shouldn't affect Optical, though.

 

[sire_angelus]

where are the most interesting results, listener B ??? only one test?? are you serious?

 

[JamieR007]

Thanks very much for the article! I really appreciate your attempt to apply some objectivity to a field that is full of subjectivity and misunderstanding. It's a shame that the early tests were flawed due to gain mismatch. Furthermore, despite the obvious amount of thought and effort that went into this work and the subsequent article, I can't help but feel it was rushed and compressed. I'd really love to see a wider range of (quality) music used, and many more testers (from a wide range of audio related disciplines) who are instructed to focus on distinct (defined and demonstratable) categories (e.g. dynamics, transients, stereo image, background noise, tonal balance etc, etc). From my own experience, I'd also suggest you'd much get better results by looping short sections of audio and comparing them directly, as mentioned in the article.

More please!! Perhaps the DAC test repeated using some modest nearfield monitors (Adam A7X or the like) would allow many more testers to be involved simultaneously (without substantially increasing the testing time). Although this introduces many other variables not applicable to headphones, at least it would provide more data and likely more interesting conclusions. Subsequent articles could also focus on different audio formats, amps, speakers / headphones, cables, etc.

Please keep up the great work! It's great to see Tom's branch out into such contentious and interesting areas as audio. It's not possible to do a "quick" audio test if objectivity is intended, but I encourage you to build on this first article with follow ups. The (audio) world needs it and you may even be able to (finally) dispell a few myths along the way.

 

[JamieR007]

There are quite a few comments above stating that most people cannot hear the difference between quality and mediocre audio. This is certainly true - it is an acquired skill, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the *intent* of the article. Many people don't know, care about or understand the specification of their PC and often won't notice (sometimes significant) differences in performance, but does that mean that Tom's Hardware shouldn't perform such tests or that they are somehow invalid?

 

[Mogg]

If a 2$ code sounds equal to a 2000$ equipment, you should get someone that can clearly tell the differences, as there are people that don't really pay atention to the quality of what they listen, and not hear a difference between 1 dollar earbuds and a LCD-3. To tell the difference between a high end DAC and other equipments, you a high resolving amplifier and speakers or headphones. With a 1 dollar earbuds I don't think you could tell the difference between mid and hi-fi

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If a 2$ code sounds equal to a 2000$ equipment, you should get someone that can clearly tell the differences, as there are people that don't really pay atention to the quality of what they listen, and not hear a difference between 1 dollar earbuds and a LCD-3. To tell the difference between a high end DAC and other equipments, you a high resolving amplifier and speakers or headphones. With a 1 dollar earbuds I don't think you could tell the difference between mid and hi-fi

Read the article. They used Sennheiser's HD 800. That's not a pair of cheap earbuds.

 

[The_Trutherizer]

What I want to know is... Why does it always sound so much better when you:1: Convert a regular mp3 to wav.2: Write wav's to Audio CD 3: Play the CD on your PC.If somebody can explain that to me then I will tell you how PC sound codecs should be improved.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

What I want to know is... Why does it always sound so much better when you:1: Convert a regular mp3 to wav.2: Write wav's to Audio CD 3: Play the CD on your PC.If somebody can explain that to me then I will tell you how PC sound codecs should be improved.

Can't say I've ever done that, but it shouldn't.

 

[drezzz]

Nice article, I applaud the controlled testing methodology and sensibility of conclusions made. I must admit it is disappointing that no meaningful trends could be gained from the data, but I think for most applications the data collected will still be useful. In most audiophile circles the lack of validation provided by blind testing has led to the methodology becoming taboo, understandable given how discussion threads typically spiral out of control once blind testing is mentioned. Additionally the absence of meaningful data makes blind testing impractical when discussing high end equipment (look for discussion of high end equipment on hydrogen audio - hint: there is none). As a result discussions of blind testing and high end audio tend to take place in separate forums or subforums. There are some rare instances where high discussion of high end audio and blind testing can coexist, and typically this requires a level of maturity, and crucially an acknowledgement of the strengths limitations of respective approaches to testing and/or evaluating audio gear, a maturity which I feel is also evident in this article.

 

[Nossy]

Kind of hypocritical for Tomshardware to say that blah blah dB at blah blah Hz is not critical, and when really comparing graphics cards that are 5fps difference (which most people won't be able to tell the difference) and claiming that one is "better" than the other. It's like turning 2x FSAA to 4x FSAA and claiming there's a difference when in general, it's only captured with screen shots and magnified.In honesty, when it comes to audio, it's not always how you "hear" the audio. There are many kinds of audio distortion, and most of them are not HEARD. They are felt. It may not be apparent at first, but a good sounding audio setup will not give you listening fatigue at high volumes. And like anything, some audio headphones, amps, speakers, etc, will give you different sound signatures, treble spikes, bass heavy, mids recession, blah blah blah. Anyhoo, when it comes down to it, it's the end-user who is the judge. If you think you can hear the difference, then it's worth every penny. It's like some musicians claim there is a difference in using a maple neck vs a rosewood neck on a guitar, etc etc.

 

[panzerknacker]

Hmm. That does sound like something's wrong.

Atrociously bad PSUs can cause major problems due to high ripple, so that's probably a first route to look at. Shouldn't affect Optical, though.

He's got a Corsair 600 watt PSU, not the best but certainly not the worst either. Maybe there is indeed something broken on the board, manufacturing errors happen. The only way we would know for sure is if more people with the P8Z77-V would compare their sound to a known-good-sounding device. I experienced defects on motherboards myself as well, USB not working etc, basically stuff which apparently does not get filtered out by the quality control department.

I still recommend anyone to judge by themselves and compare, don't just buy a motherboard and take for granted that it sounds good, you might fool yourself. As far as discrete sound cards go, I suspect these parts get more attention at the sound quality level during testing.

 

[Astralv]

Congratulations! This article serves great to keep consumers as far away as possible from the professional audio gear. If a person wanted high quality audio, why insist on using unprofessional audio equipment? Paying 3 times more for unprofessional gear hoping that it will sound "as good" as professional makes no sense. Here is the link to the real audio interfaces- grab one you like and stop obsessing with the toys that nobody takes seriously. http://www.sweetwater.com/shop/computer-audio/audio_interfaces/ Also I will let you know that for the recording purposes I am using Presonus StudioLive Fire Wire interface, however, when I just want to listen music from Spotify, I use onboard (meaning- the one that came integrated with Asus Z87 Deluxe motherboard) sound card and $30 Logitech 2.0 speakers. With Sony professional studio headphones, MDR-7509 I am getting very good quality sound. I will admit- Logitech speakers have background noise, but really- who can hear it through the music? Stop overthinking it and sent people the wrong direction. Want professional sound- get professional gear.

 

[Mark Brown]

Where are all the listener B results? There was a Listener B, Yes?I did A/B of the Benchmark HDR1 series and EMU 1212M PCIe a few years back. They both did a fantastic job. Both very linear, good sound stage (channel separation), depth etc. One thing I never figured out is the build quality statements on the Benchmark. It was your normal 4 layer PCD assembly and $3 transformer.

 

[bruceborkosky]

Toms should stick to PC's and PC hardware. It is clear that this reviewer doesn't know anything about digital music! Yes, you can say that YOU can't hear any difference between CD and Bluray sound, but that doesn't mean that others cannot hear a difference. Especially when you have created a test that, intentionally, or not, does not permit the better sound to come thru. Look, digital sound, just like any electronic system, is limited to the weakest link in the system. Did you put the signal on a meter to see if there was an actual difference in the sound quality? Or did you just assume there was? What are the features of bluray sound that make it better? Is it just sampling rate, or are there other aspects? (e.g., I didn't see any discussion of SNR... that makes a HUGE difference!). This review is woefully inadequate and biased.

 

[jecastej]

Amazing!!! Great review and without the passion and interested colorations you get on reputable HIFI audio reviews. I would liked you to include some of the cheaper USB/DACs that are causing some buzz in the audio business (Dragonfly, Microstreamer, Meridian Director or NAD 1050), but if a $2 codec can compete fairly well with a $2000 Benchmark DAC on a well conducted blind test the I guess it all becomes more a matter of taste on how every device presents the music, the features, the size or portability. And I agree it may need another blind test to prove the same using stereo speakers as it will be way more challenging to properly set up and prove if cheaper DACs are as capable.As helpful and revealing this test is I would like you to consider that a clean, analytical sound belongs to a studio recording gear more than into your typical HIFI listening room. So it is important to acknowledge the fact that for this blind test highly regarded "musical" headphones are used. Don't expect the same quality results from several DACs using cheap headphones and don't hurry to buy studio-quality gear designed for the recording industry to listen to your music as they are for a different purpose. Studio gear is so neutral, revealing or transparent you may not enjoy the music as much. This is why it is important to rely again in well balanced reviews and understand what they argue.

 

[panzerknacker]

blu-ray is just another form of computer audio. CD's are still the definition today. This is why they should also compare to a good CD player.